


and then he rises

by Liviapenn



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Ascension, Gen, Snippets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-23
Updated: 2006-04-23
Packaged: 2017-10-14 14:26:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/150224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liviapenn/pseuds/Liviapenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn't have to flip a coin to know he doesn't want to die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and then he rises

The funny part is that it doesn't really feel like dying. John's been close to death before, a couple times, and he knows what it's like. It feels like being cold, sleepy, heavy. Like trying to stay awake, struggling as you sink down into the freezing depths, kicking and scratching and fucking *fighting* even as you're losing feeling in your hands.

When John gets shot on M4X-229, he knows in his *head* that he's dying, but somehow it doesn't feel the same. He hears the crack of the primitive shotgun and he's flat on his back in the sunny field, struggling to reach his radio, thinking *what a fucking great end to a fucking perfect day*. It's all too fucking familiar, the clutching pain in his gut, spreading out through his body. The rage he fights to hold on to, because it's the only thing that ever gets him through this. Same old same old, even though he's never been in this exact position before, gut-shot in a trampled wheat-field under a reddish sun, dried stalks of wheat poking him from below.

And then it all just kind of... fades.

The sunlight feels like a warm blanket, and the pain like a thick comforter weighing his body down, and John thinks to himself... It's time to get up. Get up. He's... There's something he needs to do, something that doesn't have anything to do with what he *was* doing. He can't quite remember now what it was, and it doesn't really matter, anyway. Whatever it was, Teyla and Ronon and Rodney will take care of it.

Time to get up, he thinks again. Throw the blanket off. Sit up. Get up. Still something in him resists. He doesn't want to wake up and start the day. He wants to stay under the covers, even if it means sinking down into the dark again. And what's so wrong with sinking anyway, he thinks? It's just like falling asleep, isn't it? Into a deep sleep, down to the place where it nothing can hurt him any more. Where he doesn't even have to dream.

*John, get up*. He feels a hard tug, and the world shifts, like he's being forcibly *tipped* out of bed.

He pulls his hand away from his wound, looks down at it, clean and glowing with some inner light. He's... There's no pain. There's no blood.

"Teer," he says, and she smiles, her hand sliding into his.

"John." It's been a few years, but she... she looks good. She looks happy. "I promised you that you'd ascend with us."

"Yeah," John says, looking down at his body with odd fascination. He doesn't look very good at all. He's still breathing-- he can still feel it somewhere back there on the other side of the veil, the pain and the sun and his hands clawing the dirt-- but it's distant, like a memory already. "You did."

Teer squeezes his hand, and the world fades away. They're somewhere else-- in the jumper bay back on Atlantis, standing in front of a jumper with an open hatch. Teer tilts her head, indicating that John should enter, take the pilot's seat. "I can't do it for you," she says. "It has to be your choice."

"Where are we going?" John looks past her, through the jumper's windshield, but there's nothing there except blue shimmering sky.

"I don't know," Teer says, and John has to laugh. "I don't, John. We all find our own paths."

"So this whole 'omniscient' thing is a little over-hyped, huh," John says, but he steps into the jumper anyway. It's all lit up and ready to go, engine a whispery hum. He looks back for Teer, but she's gone. He can still feel her in the corner of his mind, just a whisper away, but he knows he can't have a guide, not for this part.

He runs through the pre-flight check without thinking about it too much, really. He doesn't have to flip a coin to know he doesn't want to die. And he's thinking of Chaya, too, of her so-called crime and her exile. She went back for her people. Teer came back for him. He hasn't forgotten about his team, his people, this galaxy. They still need him, and he'll still be able to help. Somehow.

And if he ends up in hot water for it, well. Not like he hasn't been there before. Antarctica? He liked it there... so quiet and pure, so stunningly *vast*... The sunrise over the ice shines suddenly through the windshield of the jumper, and John smiles. There could be worse fates. There's a whole world out there. It's time to wake up.

And then he lifts off, and then he rises.


End file.
